Taliban takeover of Kabul
On the morning of September 27, 1996, Mariam awoke to the sounds of shouting, whistling, firecrackers, and music. She ran to the living room and found Laila already at the window, with Aziza mounted on her shoulders. Laila turned and smiled. "The Taliban are here," she said.
Background and Arrival
Mariam had first heard of the Taliban two years before, in October 1994, when Rasheed brought home news that they had overthrown the warlords in Kandahar and taken the city. They were a guerrilla force made up of young Pashtun men whose families had fled to Pakistan during the war against the Soviets. Most had been raised—some even born—in refugee camps along the Pakistani border and in Pakistani madrasas, where they were schooled in Shari'a by mullahs. Their leader was a mysterious, illiterate, one-eyed recluse named Mullah Omar, who called himself Ameer-ul-Mumineen, Leader of the Faithful. Rasheed, addressing neither Mariam nor Laila as though they were unworthy of his opinions, said the Taliban were pure and incorruptible, decent Muslim boys who would clean up the place and bring peace and order. For two years, the Taliban had been making their way toward Kabul, taking cities from the Mujahideen and ending factional war wherever they settled. They had captured the Hazara commander Abdul Ali Mazari and executed him. For months, they had settled in the southern outskirts of Kabul, firing on the city and exchanging rockets with Ahmad Shah Massoud. Earlier in September 1996, they had captured the cities of Jalalabad and Sarobi. Rasheed said the Taliban had one thing the Mujahideen did not: they were united. "Let them come," he said. "I, for one, will shower them with rose petals."
What Happens
That day, the four of them—Rasheed, Mariam, Laila, and Aziza—went out, Rasheed leading them from one bus to the next, to greet their new world and their new leaders. In every battered neighborhood, Mariam found people materializing from the rubble and moving into the streets. She saw an old woman wasting handfuls of rice, tossing it at passersby with a drooping, toothless smile. Two men were hugging by the remains of a gutted building, and in the sky above them, firecrackers popped and whistled, set off by boys perched on rooftops. The national anthem played on cassette decks, competing with the honking of cars. Aziza pointed to a group of boys running down Jadeh Maywand, pounding their fists into the air and dragging rusty cans tied to strings, yelling that Massoud and Rabbani had withdrawn from Kabul. Everywhere there were shouts of "Allah-u-akbar!" Mariam saw a bedsheet hanging from a window on Jadeh Maywand with three words painted in big, black letters: "zendabaad taliban!"—Long live the Taliban! More signs appeared on windows, nailed to doors, and billowing from car antennas, all proclaiming the same. Later that day at Pashtunistan Square, Mariam saw her first of the Taliban. A melee of people had gathered, craning their necks and crowding around the blue fountain in the center of the square, trying to get a view of the end of the square near the old Khyber Restaurant. Rasheed used his size to push and shove past the onlookers and led them to where someone was speaking through a loudspeaker. When Aziza saw, she let out a shriek and buried her face in Mariam's burqa. The loudspeaker voice belonged to a slender, bearded young man wearing a black turban, standing on makeshift scaffolding. In his free hand, he held a rocket launcher. Beside him, two bloodied men hung from ropes tied to traffic-light posts, their clothes shredded and their bloated faces turned purple-blue. Mariam recognized the one on the left as Najibullah; the other was his brother. A young woman in front of Mariam confirmed it. Mariam would later hear that the Taliban had dragged Najibullah from his sanctuary at the UN headquarters near Darulaman Palace, tortured him for hours, then tied his legs to a truck and dragged his lifeless body through the streets. The young Talib shouted through the loudspeaker, speaking Farsi with a Pashto accent and then switching to Pashto, punctuating his words by pointing to the corpses with his weapon. "He killed many, many Muslims! His crimes are known to everybody. He was a communist and a kafir. This is what we do with infidels who commit crimes against Islam!" Rasheed was smirking. In Mariam's arms, Aziza began to cry.
Consequences and Aftermath
The following day, Kabul was overrun by trucks. In Khair khana, Shar-e-Nau, Karteh-Parwan, Wazir Akbar Khan, and Taimani, red Toyota trucks weaved through the streets, armed bearded men in black turbans sitting in their beds. From each truck, a loudspeaker blared announcements, first in Farsi, then Pashto. The same message played from loudspeakers perched atop mosques and on the radio, now known as the Voice of Shari'a. The message was also written in flyers tossed into the streets; Mariam found one in the yard. It declared that the watan was now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and listed the laws that would be enforced. All citizens must pray five times a day; if caught doing something else at prayer time, they would be beaten. All men would grow their beards to at least one clenched fist beneath the chin. All boys would wear turbans—black for grades one through six, white for higher grades—and Islamic clothes with shirt collars buttoned. Singing, dancing, playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kite flying were forbidden. Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures were forbidden. Keeping parakeets would result in a beating and the birds being killed. For stealing, a hand would be cut off at the wrist; for a second offense, a foot. Non-Muslims were not to worship where Muslims could see them, on pain of beating and imprisonment; attempting to convert a Muslim to another faith was punishable by execution. The laws for women were even more severe: they must stay inside their homes at all times, and if they went outside, they had to be accompanied by a mahram, a male relative. If caught alone on the street, they would be beaten and sent home. Women were not to show their faces under any circumstance and had to cover with a burqa when outside. Cosmetics, jewelry, and charming clothes were forbidden. Women were not to speak unless spoken to, not to make eye contact with men, and not to laugh in public—if they did, they would be beaten. Painting nails would result in losing a finger. Girls were forbidden from attending school; all schools for girls would be closed immediately. Women were forbidden from working. Adultery was punishable by stoning to death. The flyer ended with "Listen. Listen well. Obey. Allah-u-akbar." Rasheed turned off the radio. They were sitting on the living-room floor eating dinner less than a week after they had seen Najibullah's corpse hanging by a rope. Laila said, "They can't make half the population stay home and do nothing." Rasheed replied, "Why not?" For once, Mariam agreed with him—he had done the same to her and Laila, in effect. Laila argued that this was not some village but Kabul, where women had practiced law and medicine and held office in the government. Rasheed grinned and called her the arrogant daughter of a poetry-reading university man, saying she thought this was some new, radical idea, but that there were many places in the country that had always lived this way. Laila refused to believe the Taliban were serious. Rasheed asked if what they had done to Najibullah looked serious to her. Laila said Najibullah was a communist and the head of the Secret Police. Rasheed laughed, and Mariam heard in his laugh the answer: that in the eyes of the Taliban, being a communist and the leader of the dreaded KHAD made Najibullah only slightly more contemptible than a woman.
